Here’s a brief description of some of the things I tried to help my relationship with God. In this post, I shared how it was going for me.

Senses – I made and burned some beeswax candles, and really enjoy rubbing a roughed shaved cross that I was given by an elderly couple at my 1st church. In this blog, I basically whined about being a Sensate, but I’ve listened to some podcasts and let the idea of it settle in for me. And I decided that it’s actually a really awesome thing. I have 5 senses that I have access to at any waking, conscious moment. Which makes me feel like I’m kinda lucky that God would give me so many ways to access Him and feel His love if I can grow in making the connections between the concrete and His presence.

The Incarnation – Another thing I thought about looking into was the Incarnation – what it mean for God Himself to have a body with 5 senses. Tim Keller put out an amazing podcast on this in December (“The Word Made Flesh” – on iTunes, 12.8.16) and it really helped to soften my heart and lessen some of the anger I felt towards God. Particularly, when Tim talked about how Jesus came to earth as a human and the implications of what it can mean for us, being able to relate to Him as Believers. How Jesus can understand pouring your heart out, yearning for God to answer – to change something in your life, and hearing silence or “no.” I’d say the podcast helped bring Jesus closer to me psychologically.

Walking – I’ve been walking because of the pregnancy, and truly, that’s my biggest motivation. However, the health benefits toted by Katy Bowman and the author of Living into Focus, makes me want to continue and make it a life time thing. With two kids . . .

Since I was a little girl at summer camp, I have loved the 7a.m. hour in the morning. The soft light, cool temps, and quietness of the day have always drawn me in. It’s also the time when we’d open our bibles and talk about God, so I think that’s created a lasting connection for me.

One of the things that I started to notice when going on walks in November was that whenever I walked under a tree’s arching branch, I felt a really yummy, tingly feeling in my head. It made me feel covered, like a refuge. The word “refuge” in Bible verses has always pulled me in. It just seemed so nice and absolutely needed. Since finding out that I am an Enneagram 6, it became really clear why it this word is impactful for me. So I enjoy walking under these branches and feeling the yumminess, feeling comforted by God in a “sensing” way.

I’m looking forward to writing another Sensate post in which I can talk about how much closer Jesus feels to me than He did a couple months ago. Through the use of beeswax candles, absolution with a priest, and morning walks, I feel like I can sense Him again.

However this post is more from the fruit of that, which is why I mentioned it.

I was thinking this morning of Matthew 11:28-29

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

I’ve viewed those verses in a very general way: “Jesus acknowledges that life on this earth is hard and He’s saying He’ll lighten the load in someway. How nice of Him.” but after my absolution I’m experiencing this truth in a very different way.

This whole deal isn’t ideal! God gave us the ultimate “should have been” with Him in the Garden and we chose differently – threw it back at Him.

Then there’s the everyday: billions of people hundreds of times a day depart from the “supposed to be” and He knows how differently things could be and yet He has to just absorb it all, wait patiently and try to impart to us another way we should take.

That sounds hellish to me – like a constant ripping of ideals from your soul by the ones you’d love to share it with.

I don’t know why God made me a Sensate and I do want to throw it back at Him, but I’m sitting here rubbing this coarse cross from Israel (as suggested in this book) that was gifted to me years ago and thinking about the ways He can relate to my everyday heartbreaks and disappointments.

During our road trip to Ohio, I watched the Chronicles of Narnia. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it – (maybe since it first came out?) and I was interested to see if I had any different take aways this time. I did. My favorite part was when Aslan roared for the 1st time. I had to pause the film so I could cry.

I want a Jesus like that.

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Our parents are a big deal. They shape our ideas and views of God more by who they are than what’s said by them. Their interactions with us create synapses in our brain that make it easy, or more difficult, for us to believe that God really is who He says He is.

The day we decided to sell our house was also the day Nate started listening to the audio version of The 5 Love Languages. He listened to the 1st chapter and told me he thought we should listen to it together.

Chapter 1: Words of Affirmation – what I thought was my love language. The chapter was good, but not all that helpful: Nate was already pretty much doing the things the author had suggested. Which was kind of disheartening – “Hmm, ok. Well, maybe he needs to use more detail or something?” To be honest, even the suggested list of things for Nathan to try at the end of the chapter made me feel a solid “meh.”

1st blog post in forever! Man, it felt so good to see the admin dashboard on my screen again.

Well – the reason I’ve been so absent these past few months is the same reason I was this time last year . . . we moved. . . . (again).

We’re almost positive the ringing in our ears is caused by the screeching halt of our ‘moving’ gears. We’re crazy spent.

I so miss the beauty and the bigness of those 5 acres. It was a gorgeous piece of land. While I don’t want to get into everything on a public forum, I’ll share the more personal reasons we decided to head back to ATX. It wasn’t financial (renting in Austin’s a bit more expensive than owning in a county over), and it wasn’t that we didn’t like homesteading – we were mostly dabbling, but I found I did enjoy it.

Morgan Reid

I'm wife and mama learning how to love Jesus, and love on others the way He does.
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Into crunchy and natural living; mindful parenting; social justice; and environmental advocacy. I like anything domestic (decorating, fabric arts, etc), Monet's art work, photography, ASL, and having real connections with other humans. (:
Currently living in Austin, loving all the 'weird.' Counting gifts and enjoying God. ‡
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MBTI: xSFJ. Enneagram Type 6.